nd he were at
home in the White House.

She was an innocent child. She never knew what she was doing, and when a
year later Sickles, having killed her seducer--a handsome,
unscrupulous fellow who understood how to take advantage of a husband's
neglect--forgave her and brought her home in the face of much obloquy,
in my heart of hearts I did homage to his courage and generosity, for
she was then as he and I both knew a dying woman. She did die but a
few months later. He was by no means a politician after my fancy or
approval, but to the end of his days I was his friend and could never
bring myself to join in the repeated public outcries against him.

Early in the fifties Willard's Hotel became a kind of headquarters for
the two political extremes. During a long time their social intercourse
was unrestrained--often joyous. They were too far apart, figuratively
speaking, to come to blows. Truth to say, their aims were after all not
so far apart. They played to one another's lead. Many a time have I seen
Keitt, of South Carolina, and Burlingame, of Massachusetts, hobnob in
the liveliest manner and most public places.

It is certainly true that Brooks was not himself when he attacked
Sumner. The Northern radicals were wont to say, "Let the South go," the
more profane among them interjecting "to hell!" The Secessionists liked
to prod the New Englanders with what the South was going to do when they
got to Boston. None of them really meant it--not even Toombs when he
talked about calling the muster roll of his slaves beneath Bunker Hill
Monument; nor Hammond, the son of a New England schoolmaster, when he
spoke of the "mudsills of the North," meaning to illustrate what he was
saying by the underpinning of a house built on marshy ground, and not
the Northern work people.

Toombs, who was a rich man, not quite impoverished by the war, banished
himself in Europe for a number of years. At length he came home, and
passing the White House at Washington he called and sent his card to the
President. General Grant, the most genial and generous of men, had him
come directly up.

[Illustration: W. P. Hardee, Lieutenant General C.S.A.]

"Mr. President," said Toombs, "in my European migrations I have made it
a rule when arriving in a city to call first and pay my respects to the
Chief of Police."

The result was a most agreeable hour and an invitation to dinner. Not
long after this at the hospitable board of a Confederate general, t